On the face of it, Frank Loesser, one of Broadway´s all-time great wielders of urban slang, and Karen Oberlin, a demure pop-jazz singer who radiates a subdued glamour, are not a natural fit. Had he lived in a later time, Loesser, who died in 1969, might have turned a Martin Scorsese movie like "Raging Bull" into a hard-boiled pop opera. Nothing about Ms. Oberlin, whose tribute to Loesser, "Heart and Soul: A Centenary Celebration of Frank Loesser," is playing at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel, could be described as hard-boiled. She is no smoldering Vikki LaMotta. Nor could I imagine her in "Guys and Dolls," playing Miss Adelaide, whose comic signature song, "Adelaide´s Lament," is conspicuously missing from this show. (Sarah Brown, yes.)

But there are other aspects to Loesser besides the wisecracking pre-Beat poet of "Guys and Dolls." And in "Heart and Soul" Ms. Oberlin concentrates on Loesser´s softer-edged zaniness and on his unjustly neglected romantic side. Several of Loesser´s great ballads – notably, "I´ve Never Been in Love Before," "I Wish I Didn´t Love You So" and "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year" – were given careful, contemplative readings in Wednesday´s show.

Beyond having a pretty voice, poise and interpretive insight, Ms. Oberlin is a thorough researcher who placed many of the songs in a historical or personal context. The frisky "Bloop, Bleep!" and the galloping boogie-woogie "Rumble, Rumble, Rumble," she explained, described Loesser´s nocturnal frustration at the sounds of dripping faucets and an upstairs piano player.

Her interpretation of "Love Isnt Born (Its Made)," a song with music by Arthur Schwartz that Ann Sheridan introduced in the 1943 movie "Thank Your Lucky Stars," emphasized its message as a hard-headed advice song to women to be more sexually aggressive. "Here is a fact to face:/A man wont take a taxi just to get no place," it declares.

Ms. Oberlin brought enough sass to "Hamlet," Loesser´s riotously funny translation of Shakespeare into gangsterese ("He bumped off his uncle/and he Mickey Finned his mother") to make the song register.

Throughout the smart, polished show, she maintained a comfortable rapport with her musicians, the fleet, airy jazz pianist Jon Weber, who took a couple of impressive solos, and the bassist Sean Smith.

Karen Oberlin continues through June 19 at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel, 59 West 44th Street, Manhattan; (212) 419-9331.

Connect

Categories

About Magazine

Rausseo Journal exposes insights on real people. This Magazine shades light on many different subjects concerning public and private lives. It also gives the latest news on the most popular as well as most controversial topics on the face of the earth from entertainment to polity to science. Subscribe today and enjoy all these events enfold in front of your own eyes.